I've Given Up Keeping Track of the Days

I thought I'd post a quick update on the events of my weekend.

We left campus at 5:00 pm on Friday evening. It was about an hour and a half long bus ride and believe it or not- the President of Uganda, Museveni, passed us on the way there. The bus had to pull over and this huge procession of government vehicles passed by. I didn't realize until after the fact what all the craziness was about.

We arrived at the resort, got checked into our rooms, then went to dinner. Some people got put into rooms with UCU students, but I was put in a small little room with another USP girl, Rochelle who lives on my hall and I rode next to on the plane rides here, so I knew her fairly well. I was actually really grateful that I was with someone I knew because I could just kind of relax in my room. Plus, I forgot to pack PJ's so I was really excited that I had a roommate who I could sleep in my underwear with! Sorry, that may have been an overshare...

All the meals were amazing. There was loads of good food. Meat, chapatis (kind of like tortillas, but better), fruit, veggies, spaghetti. So good!

After dinner, we all went into this big room to play ridiculously corny, but super fun get-to-know-you name games. After that, a bunch of people went into the pool then I headed to bed. The next morning, we had breakfast then went out on the lawn for more name games and a dodge-ball tournament! My team was like all girls, so sadly, we did not advance. After that was over, we spent a good couple hours in the pool. We started some form of Water Rugby that was pretty brutal, but ridiculously fun. I think everyone came out with battle wounds. After lunch, I could feel that I had gotten sunburned already (despite reapplying sunscreen) so I wanted to just hang out and talk in the shade.

We had a slightly serious moment, when a group of us were sitting in the shade just looking out over the lake. A couple of boys who lived nearby had come and were just kind of talking to everyone and asking to take pictures with people's cameras (I hid mine because I was a little sketched out). Anyway, about a half hour into it, one of the Honors College kids' phone had gone missing and soon after someone figured out that one of the kids had stolen it. When his family found out, his father started "caning" him. The kid was crying and screaming in pain and took off. His father started chasing him around the part of the resort we were at with this long piece of bamboo/wood. It was slightly horrifying, so one of the Honors College guys, Moses, eventually approached the father and told him that we didn't really appreciate his disciplining his son like that in front of us. The father was understanding, and that was pretty much the end of it. But it created a momentary dark cloud over our day.

Maybe an hour after all that transpired I got on the boat that took us to the source of the Nile. There were shifts of about 8 to 10 of us going every half hour. The tour guides took us to a little island right next to the source where we took pictures. We got back in the boat and they showed us this little island where all these birds lived, this humongous lizard thing, a pillar what was a monument for John Picks, who discovered the source, and then a monument where some of Gandhi's ashes had been scattered.

We got back, I tried sugar cane for the first time (not that big of a fan), started up a game of Uno, had dinner, then started up a game of poker. I actually did really well, I made it to the very end, and it was just between me and this guy Beau. It was late when poker ended so I went to sleep. The next morning, I woke up for breakfast, we had a worship service (with yet another crazy God moment) then I went and took a nap until lunch time because the lack of sleep and the abundance of sun had worn me out and I knew I had work to do when I got back.

After lunch, we immediately boarded the bus and headed back to campus where I later had a fantastic girls night with my 3 good friends here- Katie, Katy and Bea. Yeah, there's three Kaity's in my group. It makes for amusing introductions. I didn't get to watch the Superbowl. We tried staying up to watch it, but by 2 am, we all had to call the quits. That about catches everyone up! I should get going on my work for tomorrow!

NKWAGALA!
(That's 'I love you' in Luganda)